a no holds barred look at the global financial headlines. show me the memo eleven u.s. senators are demanding that president obama hand over classified papers dealing with drone strikes last night the obama administration's legal justification for targeting american citizens abroad leaked to the press the details next. don't get mad get even it appears that the policy of the government is using against the standard and poor's credit rating agency it's filed charges against the agency in federal court saying standard for its gave a high marks to mortgage backed securities even though they knew they were risky what this means for the economy coming up. and a good bye for an internal prodigy a solemn promise from those left behind to fight for internet freedom hundreds gathered on capitol hill last night to remember the life and legacy of aaron swartz

our t. was there and will tell you who else was. it's tuesday february fifth eight pm here in washington d.c. i'm liz wall and you're watching our team. we begin today taking a look at drone strikes targeting american citizens a confidential justice department memo just released revealed the legal justification for the government to conduct these strikes perhaps the most controversial part of the memo is that the government does not need clear evidence to justify a deadly attack here's a piece of that white paper obtained by a.b.c. n.b.c. excuse me quote the condition that an operational leader present an imminent threat of violent attack against the united states does not require the united states to have clear evidence that a specific attack on u.s. persons and interests will take place in the immediate future so in place of clear

evidence a high level government official has the authority to decide who poses a threat according to the memo meanwhile a bipartisan group of eleven senators are calling on the president to dish the details on what exactly the legal justification is for using drones and other means to kill american citizens earlier i was joined by scott horton contributing editor at harper's magazine i asked him to explain what types of power this gives to the president and high level executives. well that's fire they catch is high level executives so it seems that the president whether or power he has he's he's prepared to and has delegated them pretty far but this basically is a sabotaging executive assassinations program where the president can designate even american citizens but to be killed by drones when the government

feels it has good enough information then to kate that they are senior people in our or in the société did organization and they present a threat and i think part of the catch here has to do with imminence i think it's been the accepted for a long time that yet when there's an imminent danger someone's about to be killed or shot or a bomb is about to go off that some sort of measure could be justified on grounds of self-defense but here we see in this memorandum or this summary of a larger memorandum we see that the notion of imminent has been defined into obey livy and so it doesn't have anything to do with the normal english meaning of that word just that the government feels that there is a threat and that there was some prior involvement in some sort of threat so it sounds like you're worried about this kind of language and if mom and dad that it's they. that's exactly right and i think previously we had speeches that were given

by eric holder at northwestern university in chicago and then by john brennan at harvard university and which they set a very tight series of guidelines for the use of this power and authority and we see and this memorandum actually it's far looser that the lawyers have attempted to justify far more sweeping exercise of this potentially lethal power now speaking of a language we saw occupy wall street protesters that where they were being investigated for a possible terrorist threat so i mean could that line blur or could it go that far where there is a danger that this law could be used against activists if an activist is accused of being an associated part of disassociating force associated with terrorists do you fear that it could go that far. we should know about that the memos very very clear

that this doesn't apply inside the united states there are different rules there but it could apply outside the united states to u.s. citizens and i'd say a case that's more troubling in my mind has to do with whistleblowers and leakers who've disclosed information about government corruption or wrongdoing because the government routinely we acts in these cases by saying you're advancing the interests of the enemy you're helping our enemy against us this is a very serious national security violation when you look at those claims and juxtapose them against the department of justice white paper you really you've got to be worried because it looks like they may be sweeping that up into some area where lethal force is being justified and i think the crux here really is a question of why not arrest why not capture these people why kill them and on that point the memo tells us. well in circumstances where capture arrest just isn't

feasible or maybe isn't convenient would be about their word we're entitled to kill that's really the crux of the problem here i guess my next question was going to be what does this memo say about due process but i guess it doesn't really say much about that. very that says that there's a very very little due process and i think most scholars would agree that on the imminent harm side before you kill someone there does have to be a due process test of some sort that's made and john brennan when he gave his speech he stressed that he also sort of muddled it so did eric holder and this memo points to real short shrift being given to the process so there's very little comfort in it for civil libertarians well this drone program abroad has been a very secretive program now we have a group of senators eleven senators that are requesting more information from president obama from the administration to make this information public i want to read a part of this letter it says quote it is vitally important for the congress and

the american public to have a full understanding of how the executive branch interprets the limits and boundaries of this authority so that congress and the public can decide whether this authority has been properly defined and whether the president's power to deliberately kill american citizens is subject to appropriate limitations and safeguards so scott do you think that maybe this could be a turning point in making a very secretive program more transparent. i think yes i think the upcoming confirmation hearing for john brennan to be director of the cia provides another test but you know to me when i read this memo when n.b.c. put it up way the first thing that shocked me was the idea that this was being kept secret i mean this is nothing but plain vanilla legal analysis it's controversial it's even wrong on some points it's potentially embarrassing but there are no national security secrets here and this notion that the law or rather the government's understanding of what the law is is something that can be held secret

from congress and from the american people is really shocking. it's got great to have you won appreciate you weighing in on this very important new development that was scott horan contributing editor at harper's magazine great to be with you but the use of drones is certainly not exclusive to the u.s. the u.k. is currently working on expanding their own drone program plans to test what's called a supersonic stealth drone name tyrannosaurs being touted as the future of u. r t sarah forth has more. it can fly faster than the speed of sound it can deploy its own weapons and it can go deep into enemy territory now this is the ne british super drain as it's known the transistors been under development for many many years now costing hundreds of millions of pounds already but it's thought that this revolutionary niecy project is going to be taking is maiden voyage over the

next couple of weeks that's what's expected now military chiefs has said that the trances will pave the way for a whole new generation of these new drones and it's being billed as the future of the air force but experts have warned that this could open the doors to a whole new type of warfare there's concerns about robo wolf where machines that are able to launch their own attacks kid attacks humans and of course a lot of control the sea that always surrounds the east of drones as well but they're still there and with the here and now because the controversy surrounding drone warfare has been highlighted recently when the u.n. launched an investigation in to civilian deaths caused by the drones now assisting the u.n. in their research it's a team from goldsmiths university of london and i'm joined by one of thirteen now professor. and i thank you very much for joining us today and this new technology a lot of talk about a lot of excitement but

a huge number of unanswered questions that go along with these developments you're taking part in this investigation now we haven't even really got questions answered eight of the legality of these attacks and yet we're seeing technology sort of leapfrogging over the law at this point. what. we are seeing a de facto legislation practice. of warfare actually creating the law for the problem of the law for use it always lags behind the technologies of force course the chronology moves much for. aster than the laws of war and the technology change the way in which we conduct our wars when we speaking about drone warfare we're not really speaking about the area bomb being we're speaking about targeted attacks and especially the kind of a new type of attack that we've been seeing in the last decade that is called the extra troops juridical assassination these really are based on kill

ists compiled by somebody either authorized by the people with the reason or transparency and we do not know how that process is undertaken and of course this is really what your investigations hinge on is gathering that all important data is that absolutely in the forensic architecture project at goldsmiths what we look at is the nature of war in an urban area and the most drone attacks are launched on inhabited areas areas with a lot of civilians with civilians and militant. in town gold in the numbers are very difficult to establish because both israel and the united states would consider every man over a certain age sometimes sixteen sometimes eighteen is a militant by definition we know it is not true the details of that investigation the results are expected towards the end of the year old tabor thank you for joining us they talk about britain and of course all the other answered questions that go along with that. those are the correspondents are fourth in london. well

it's the first lawsuit related to the credit crisis the government is now suing standard and poor's accusing the ratings company of three types of fraud that contributed to the financial downturn the u.s. says standard and poor's downplayed the risks on trillions of dollars worth of mortgage investments it's alleged the bond ratings company did this to bring more problem more business and profits so is this a step in holding accountable those responsible for the economic collapse to discuss i'm joined now by richard asco a senior fellow at the campaign for america's future welcome richard. i want to start off by asking you what exactly is the government accusing standard and poor's of well they're saying that standard and poor's which is a private company that certified by the government as a credit rating agency misrepresented its own work to the government in order to get in keep that accreditation and that it also misrepresented its work

to investors who relied on those ratings to make investments in mortgage backed securities which according to the government according to very compelling evidence standard and poor's knew were very risky but gave the highest rating for safety of aaa so they're saying that it's a fraud case they're saying maybe for audited investors by misrepresenting their work they defrauded the government by misrepresenting the quality of their work and for evidence they point to internal memos from power points and other documents e-mails and so on that show that people within standard and poor's thought that some of these investments were terrible and that they weren't providing the kind of analysis that they were telling people they were providing now why single out standard and poor's that this ratings agency also downgraded the u.s. as credit rating so could this be seen as a retaliatory. well you know people are saying that particularly on the right but

if it's retaliatory it's the slowest retaliation in history because they they issue that downgrade in july of last year and the stock market the investors in general didn't react at all nobody cared and the value of. treasury bonds in the u.s. government continued to be extremely strong so i don't think there's anything really to retaliate about i think that people are saying that because they don't want standard and poor's or any other rating agencies discredited right now but it's a very excellent time to discredit them could you talk more richard about its wire ratings agency would do this what is them the motive to inflate ratings. well it's very simple it's money you know each of these rating agency is the major ones is a for profit company the word agency makes people think it might be part of a government it's not it's for profit it's

a company they they want to maximize profits the documents in this lawsuit show and other documents and shown that standard and poor's is very anxious to make as much money as possible and their customers are not the people who rely on them their customers are the banks that they're rating so the best way to get and keep a lot of business is by giving good ratings as often as you can whenever you can and that's exactly what standard and poor's did now if standard and poor's did in fact inflate ratings how much of a role could that have played in leading to this recession that we saw well it was central i mean it was critical i think that's one of the important things about this case is that these ratings agencies so-called said that these toxic. triple a they call them aaa mortgage backed securities which were at the heart. of the financial crisis in the end the falling recession they said they were

just the best kinds of investments you could make one they knew better and so by giving them these ratings they misled a lot of people and the government with disastrous results now richard would you say that this is a step in holding accountable those responsible for the financial crisis well it's a step towards holding some of them accountable would we still haven't seen enough about the banks themselves but if we can break down this corrupt system and it is a corrupt system of the way these credit credit rating agencies operate that would be a big step in the right direction interesting richard are appreciate you coming on the show that was our richard ask. that the senior fellow at the campaign for america's future. now to california where the fate over nuclear energy is heating up the sand over a nuclear power plant has been offline part about a year now but the utility company is determined to turn the reactor back on the

problem is that a growing number of neighbors who live near the plant want the nuclear reactor to stay shut down for good artes among glenda shows us the fight and how it affects america's energy future. this stretch of california coastline is paradise to many it's just the perfect place to live fresh air court association but with the fukushima disaster freshener mine done and gilmore is questioning how safe it is to live near the center no for a nuclear power plant we're risking being include usa and basically devastated the economy of the country and possibly the world just for addison's profits gilmore moved to orange county assuming that living near a nuclear plant is safe said in over his reactors have been shut down since january of two thousand and twelve because the leak was detected in one of the scene generator tubes it's not unusual for new steam january this to show somewhere above

the level of wear that we saw on the steam generators here a chain at santa no phrase highly unusual and that's what is of concern to the n.r.c. since then environmental groups and neighbors have been trying to keep the crippled plant down it's a lab experiment and were all the rats despite safety concerns here in santa know free nuclear energy could be a large part of america's energy future the obama administration has been an advocate for the technology even in the wake of the fukushima disaster the president secured an eight point three billion dollars loan guarantee for two nuclear reactors in georgia. we're going to have to build a new generation of safe clean nuclear power plants in america nationwide there are one hundred forty licensed reactors according to the nuclear regulatory commission nuclear plants generate twenty percent of the electricity in the u.s. we take the. reason we're doing research to be very serious the operators of santa

know free presented a plan to restart their reactor at seventy percent so you know yes this is if you see. some neighbors are still scared former nuclear executive arnie gundersen believes the reactor steam generator is a disaster waiting to happen if those troops and fail well forget evacuating ten miles we're talking about an evacuation out to twenty or thirty miles that type of sobering warning has mobilized communities to take on the nuclear industry finally got to retire you know in my dream place and and that could just be taken away in a second permanently because once you have a nuclear accident you never can come home again the center no free shutdown has cost more than three hundred million dollars the tab will likely be picked up by so cal edison rate payers with growing concerns over safety it means a sea of america's investment in nuclear will be worth the risk in sacramento california. ramon the lindo r t for more on this nuclear power

plants are bad enough that could pose a danger i was joined earlier by arnie gundersen chief engineer of fair wind energy education i first asked him if people and that california community should be concerned. if i were there i would be very concerned you know the the the new scene generators are supposed to last for years and they only lasted ten months so starting a plant back up is an experiment and i don't think we should experiment with southern california. as a interesting you know as a former our nuclear power industry executive or what dangers have you seen and your work and using nuclear energy. you know the sentinel free is the worst plan in the last twelve years worst mechanical failure but there was a mechanical failure out in ohio back in zero two that we were about two weeks away from a meltdown there it seems like about every ten years there's

a real serious mechanical problem and we just catch it right before the a gross failure occurs and i'm just a little concerned that i don't want to be part of the process that keeps just catching problems listen if this one of the but. yeah i mean we saw the devastation that played out in fukushima japan could something like that happen here in the us you know the worst plant in the country as far as evacuation plans go is sent over. when they built it in the sixty's there was nobody near it but of course southern california has grown dramatically in fifty years so it would be almost impossible to evacuate people who have to get out as it is the worst plant and they've got seismic risks and you've got these steam generators that are just an experiment waiting to go wrong so are you a proposal a proponent of never opening that plan period or or do you think there needs to be

more studies more precautions more preparation that needs to be done before that plan is open. well at a minimum the public should have a chance to have a licensing hearing in the process you know that my position with with friends of the earth is that we're entitled to a hearing about all of the design calculations that right now we're not really prove it to so i don't know that we need to shut it down but i'd sure like to see the calculations before we let it start up and the n.r.c. is not really willing to let that happen you know and why not there are a pretty secretive agency you know it's the service the nuclear priesthood and they of course they believe that the sole responsibility for safety is theirs you know tell that to the people that live near a power plant they might feel a little bit differently so this agency historically has

a record of supporting the industry it's supposed to be regulated and that's a concern which is why friends of the earth went in and tried to get a licensing hearing and course there's a lot of process still to go before we determine whether or not that's going to happen as carding that to the nuclear regulatory commission nuclear plants generate twenty percent of the electricity and you last that's a pretty good chunk there. what are the alternatives if you were in favor of getting rid of this form of energy altogether. i didn't suggest i'm in favor of shutting all of nuclear plants down today i don't think that's that's reasonable if you said what are the alternatives but you know there's a couple of outliers like the senate over plan that that's awfully old and broken that should be shut down on economic grounds that the people in southern california are paying. close to seven or eight hundred million dollars plus the close for the

repair which is another seven or eight hundred million dollars a year into this for over a billion dollars and you've got a plant that hasn't run in fourteen months ok i did last i do want to ask you a certainly you point out a lot of a lot of glitches a lot of very troubling. things that could go wrong over there in california a is there a way to administer nuclear power in a way that is safe and sustainable well we need a regulator that actually enforces the regulations we have if that happens then a no free wouldn't have had this problem that can hope for there was a process that should have occurred where the nuclear regulatory commission would have looked at this new steam generator and said whoa it's got problems we'll still no free managed to skirt around that problem and not use the legal process and

so if we enforce the laws we have we can have fewer chances of like we almost not as you know for yasser and we don't want to hear what happened over there and took a shame it happened here on our own shores really appreciate pre-shared coming on there any of that with arnie gundersen chief engineer of fairwinds energy education thanks for having me. a wireless internet for all that's what a recent planned push by the federal communications commission would do but not of telecom corporations can help it the one hundred seventy eight billion dollar industry is script scrambling to prevent the government's super wife i as it's been dubbed plan from becoming a reality according to the washington post among those opposed are eighteen t.s.u. mobile intel and qualcomm but internet giants like google and microsoft say free internet everywhere will lead to a surge of innovation and new gadgets that would benefit everyone from all walks of

life but the f.t.c. is proposal isn't quite as simple as providing nationwide free why five it would however make so-called white spaces available to the general public more than they are now in other words it would free up frequencies once used by private companies to the public in the meantime the looks like it's an uphill battle before super why fly whatever become available. now on to a story we've been covering since its outset and that is the remarkable life and shocking death of internet pioneer aaron swartz yesterday on the steps of capitol hill people from all walks of life came together at a vigil to pay their respects to aaron swartz the outspoken internet activist ended his own life a little more than a month ago and as many continue to grieve the loss of the man behind such online innovations as the r.s.s. feed and reddit questions surrounding his death are turning at the calls for reform

are suggesting underhill has more. he was nineteen. aaron had already done an extraordinary amount last night members of congress celebrated the life of internet activist aaron swartz in a memorial on capitol hill where lawmakers family activists and i could spoke about aaron and called for federal reform of anti hocking laws we have to be able to ask the question are we a country that wants to encourage our best and brightest the rebels in the misfits the ones who see things differently and change our world for the better or do we want a country that crushes them when aaron hack a poorly written criminal law are called him a dangerous criminal common sense and conscience knows better and we are going to change this unjust law because of aaron because of the family. in two thousand and eleven prosecutors went after aaron swartz for

downloading millions of academic articles from j. store using mit campus network source was charged with violating the computer fraud and abuse act and act that has been criticized for language that is considered overly broad and vague he faced a potential prison sentence of more than thirty years and up to one million dollars in fines last month representatives that we lost introduced aram's law a proposal that would amend the computer fraud and abuse act this bill would decriminalize the act of violating terms of service agreements in addition to this the electronic frontier foundation has called for penalties that are proportionate to the gravity and nature of the crime lawmakers i could this call for common sense in these prosecutions but it goes the crime and the punishment have to fit everyone here and tonight knows that the crime and the punishment did not fit. as our committee investigates it it's going to be to try to find out how it wallie.

yesterday's memorial on capitol hill was the latest high profile event honoring swartz's life but it's what happens inside the capitol building that will determine his legacy in washington just two hundred r.t. all that is going to do it for now but for more on the stories we covered you can always check out our you tube channel that is youtube dot com slash r t america you know also find all of our latest and greatest interviews and in best a geisha is there or check out our website our team dot com slash usa our web team is constantly updating it with otherwise untold stories to our web team wrote a story about republicans lashing out against former congressman ron paul for his tweet about the death of a former navy seal to find out what ron paul tweeted and who is speaking out against him go to our web site r t dot com slash usa and you can also follow me on twitter at liz wall for now have a great night.